A Gift from the TARDIS
by keeperofthetardis
Summary: Rose Tyler, now living in Pete's World after being separated from the Doctor, has a son, but everything changes when her son goes missing. The first piece of fanfiction I ever actually completed, from several years ago. Ten/Rose.


A Gift From the TARDIS

Rose walked into her living room, and saw her little boy, Sammy, looking out the window. His head was on his hand, resting on the windowsill, and even though she was sure that he could hear her he didn't even move. He sat with his little legs curled underneath him, sitting on the low backed green loveseat that was by the window.

"Hey Sammy boy," she said walking toward him. "What are you looking at?" she asked. Sammy turned his head away from the window and looked up at her with his big chocolate brown eyes. He looked solemnly at her for a moment then said,

"I'm watching for my Daddy to come home."

His little voice saying those words nearly broke Rose's heart right then. But what he said next caused tears to spring to her eyes. He turned back to the window and peered down the street.

"Everybody else has a daddy, but my daddy isn't here. I'm waiting for him to come back. Why hasn't he come yet, Mummy? Why not? Does he not love me?"

Rose held back the tears that were threatening to spill down her cheeks. She reached for her tiny three-year-old son, who was dressed in green and white dinosaur pyjamas. She swallowed the lump in her throat and picked him up.

"Come here Sammy." Sammy wrapped his arms around his mother's neck, and buried his face in her shoulder, beginning to cry softly. Rose rubbed circles on his back, and stroked his blonde hair. "It's alright, sweetheart. It's okay. Don't you ever, ever think that your daddy doesn't love you. He loves you so much, I'm sure of it." Rose felt terrible. She knew this day would come. He would ask about his father, and he would want to know if he loved him. Rose felt terrible knowing that she had to tell her son that his Daddy loved him, when his Daddy didn't even know he existed.

"But Mummy," Sammy cried, "he's not here. He's gone. I would know if he was here. But he's gone."

Rose was a bit confused at his reply. What do you mean, Sammy? How would you know if he was here?"

Sammy pulled his head away from his mother's shoulder and looked at Rose with watery eyes. He sniffed once and tapped his temple.

"I would know. Up here. But there's nobody else. Not Daddy, not anybody. There's like this great big space where he's supposed to be. Is…" he paused, furrowing his eyebrows, "Is my Daddy dead?" he asked, a tear trickling down his cheek.

Rose began carrying him down the hall toward his bedroom.

"No! No, honey, he's not dead. I know for a fact that he's very much alive."

"Then why hasn't he come?" he asked as they entered his room and Rose set him down on his bed. Pulling back the covers, and helping him climb in, she sat down next to him and cuddled him to her side.

"Sammy do you remember when you went to the fair with me, Gran, Grandad, and Uncle Mickey?"

"Yes, and I fell and got stuck behind the ferris wheel."

"Yes. Well it's like that. Remember how you were scared and you were too short to see over the machinery where you were? Even if you had tried to climb out you couldn't, because it was all too high. It's like that for your Daddy. Look at your ceiling, sweetheart."

Sammy turned his head and looked at the ceiling, where there was a projection of the constellations of their universe.

"This might be hard for you to understand, but your Daddy is out there in outer space. But there are other worlds, other universes besides the one where we live. I used to live in another universe, and then I met your Daddy, and we went traveling in outer space. But then… then we got separated, and I ended up in this world, and he in the other. There are walls between us though, between this universe and the next, and even though we want to get back to one another, we're just too short to climb over the walls. Does that make sense?"

Sammy nodded slowly,

"I think so. But, you found me. When I was behind the machinery, you still found me. He could still find us, couldn't he? If he loves us, he'll want to find us, right Mummy?"

Rose dropped a soft kiss on Sammy's head.

"If he can, he will, Love."

Sammy nodded and burrowed down underneath his covers. "You feeling sleepy?" Rose asked him.

"Yes," came his muffled reply.

"Ok, get some sleep then." Rose knelt down by his bed and kissed his cheek. Then she felt his little arms go around her neck, and Sammy whispered,

"I love you, Mummy. I'm so happy you're my Mummy. Thank you."

Rose couldn't help but grin.

"What for?" she asked.

"For loving me," was his matter of fact answer. Rose smiled softly, and pulled the covers up over his shoulders as he put his head on his pillow and snuggled with his stuffed moose, Clarence. She stroked his messy blonde hair gently, and whispered in his ear,

"You're welcome, my little boy."

But he was already asleep.

One morning, a week later, Sammy awoke very early in the morning. It was not unusual for him to wake up early, his Mummy had said that it was a gift from the TARDIS. She said that about a lot of things concerning him. But this morning, he awoke not because of his Time Lord biology. No, he awoke because he felt something. In the back of his mind, he knew someone was there. It wasn't quiet anymore. Something, or someone had entered his universe. Except, something told him it wasn't his universe any more. Anyway, something was there, and he was going to find out what. So quietly getting up out of bed, he put on his camo trousers, a red t-shirt, and his Converse trainers. He may be only three, but he knew how to tie his shoes already. He was a Time Child, so he could do things like that. Except, he didn't know he was a Time Child. Sammy just knew he was different, and very smart. It was why Mummy taught him at home. Another thing which she had told him to call, "a gift from the TARDIS". She had told him that she could teach him how to crack the Skasis Padagrim if he needed to. So Sammy pulled on his black puffa jacket, took a granola bar from out of the cabinet, put it in his pocket, and quietly snuck out the door, so as not to wake his mother. He sensed that that something was coming from the woods around his house. He didn't know what it was, but he was going to find out.

The Doctor was bored. Heartbroken, and bored, so he decided to scribble some random equation. He didn't know why, or what the equation was, or what it meant, he just did it. Then one day, so to speak, while floating in the Vortex, the Doctor randomly decided to enter in the answer to his equation as coordinates in the TARDIS, just because he could. Little did he know that that equation was the one his fellow Time Lord's had used to make travel between the universes possible – the one he cursed himself for never learning. Except, he was off by a tiny bit, just a sliver of a fraction, of a fraction of a number after the decimal, in the 26th number in the series of numbers in the answer to his equation. So the Doctor had successfully managed to cross between his universe, and next parallel one – and he was crashing.

Rose awoke one morning, a week after Sammy had asked about where his Daddy was, and went into the kitchen, in her house, that was decorated in shades of blue, and white, and green, and gold. She glanced at the clock on the counter – it read 8:45. Sammy wasn't up yet, and that was unusual, but he had gone to bed late the night before, so she thought nothing of it, and ate a bowl of cereal. At 9:30, he still wasn't up, so she went to check on him, and he wasn't there. That was when she noticed that the latch on the screen door was undone. Running out of the house, she called for Sammy outside, but unlike all the times before, he didn't come running, and she didn't hear his tiny voice calling back to her. She then went back inside and searched every possible space in her house. He wasn't there. That was when she pulled out her cell phone, and dialed for Jake at Torchwood.

"Jake," she said, "I want every field agent available you've got on this right now. Sammy's gone missing."

So Torchwood went on Mauve Alert - because Rose Tyler's son, the one with two hearts and who could feel the Earth spinning around on its axel beneath his feet, was missing. And that could mean a number of things. Call it a gift from the TARDIS.

The Doctor fell to the grating as his Time Ship crashed. It wasn't as bad as the last time they had a bad landing, but it was still a crash. His ship went dark, and it was half a minute before he could get up off the floor. He reached for the monitor, and tried to read the info about the environment, but the screen was blank.

"No!" he said, running his hand through his hair. "But that's… That's IMPOSSIBLE!" The Doctor grabbed his coat and ran for the door, throwing caution to the wind as he stepped out. He found himself in a forest, with ferns growing all around the trees every which way.

"Blimey it's like Jurassic Park," he said. And then he felt it. Something he hadn't felt since the burning of Gallifrey. He felt the presence of another Time Lord.

It wasn't what it looked like. Rose was sure that Sammy was the Doctor's son, as well as hers (she had given birth to him, after all!). She could see it in Sammy's eyes, the chocolate brown ones that were so much like the Doctor's, and the way his hair simply refused to go the right direction, some days. He said things that were either exactly what his father had said to her before, or something that was so achingly familiar and reminiscent of the Doctor that it just hurt. One day, he had told her that he could feel the Earth turning on its axel. That was when she knew for sure that he was a Time Lord, or would grow up to be one. As if the two hearts and the way he could hold his breath for an ungodly amount of time when he was angry didn't tell her already. Rose knew that Sammy was something different from the time he was born - if the golden light that had swirled around both of them during and after the labor was any indication at all. He had been born at one of the hospitals run by Torchwood, mainly for the assurance and safety that he wouldn't be taken away for examination when the med staff discovered he had two hearts. There was no guarantee that Torchwood wouldn't do that either, but Rose was the daughter of its Director, Pete Tyler, so everyone figured they would leave him and his kin alone. They didn't want to get Pete Tyler angry. Most everyone liked him. And they liked Rose too. Even if it did look like she had gone through a ton of heartache, she was a kind and compassionate person, with a wealth of information about aliens, alien tech, and a lot of other valuable things. She was extremely smart and level-headed in the event of an invasion, so they trusted her, and a great many of Torchwood's employees cared a lot about her. Therefore, if she wanted to be an on call agent, and only come in when absolutely necessary, so that she had as much time with her son as possible, it was fine with them.

Rose had decided to homeschool Sammy for a number of reasons. He was extremely intelligent for one. He had started crawling when he was six months old, walking when he was eight months old, and talking when he was one. By the time he was two, he had a mouth that never stopped running, the ability to fix the toaster, and hotwire it to toast to perfection, could read at the level of a sixth grader, and was doing seventh grade math. When he was three he learned how to tie his shoes, and started doing Algebra. Rose was slightly baffled, but she was okay with that. In most ways he was just a sweet three-year-old. He had the emotional make-up of a three-year-old, anyway. He still had nightmares, still slept with stuffed animals, and still needed a bedtime story read to him. The second reason that she homeschooled him was because if he ever got hurt, like fell on the playground and scraped his knee, or complained that his throat hurt, or threw up, he would be sent to the school nurse. That would mean that they would be risking that the discovery would be made that Sammy had two hearts, and a number of things could happen. If Sammy was ever taken away from her, Rose would be destroyed. She couldn't take that big of a risk, ever. And she had a feeling that normal schools would just hold him back, rather than help him excel. The third reason was that Rose actually had the ability to do it. She had finished school, sure, but she had never gotten any A-levels. Suddenly, at least, after the Doctor regenerated, after the whole thing about Bad Wolf, Rose found that she actually knew how to do all the hard maths, and had a wealth of information that she never studied for, or knew before. So when she said that she could teach Sammy how to crack the Skasis Padagrim, she had meant it. She really could. More and more lately, she kept calling things, "a gift from the TARDIS". Because that's what she thought that it was. She didn't know how she came to be pregnant with Sammy in the first place. Had she been in love with a human, it would have been easy to figure it out, but she was in love with an alien. In love with the Last of the Time Lords. It was an amazing night, that one. She still wasn't sure what really happened, but she was pretty sure it had to do with her, the Doctor, the TARDIS, the Oncoming Storm, and the Bad Wolf. They had just visited this amazing planet, full of rocks that spiraled towards the sky, which was filled with these amazing creatures that looked like Pterodactyls. The sky was a brilliant orange, purple, pink and gold, and the Doctor said it reminded him of Gallifrey. He had asked her how long she was going to stay with him, and she had said forever, without hesitation. Then they had grinned at each other and then hugged each other like they never wanted to let go. They hugged for much longer than "just friends" would do. But then, they weren't just friends anymore, were they. No they were much, much more than that. When they entered back into the TARDIS, a golden and silver light began to swirl around them both, and neither of them questioned it. They showed their souls to each other, everything the other was, the other knew. They were happy, they were together. But a storm was approaching. Rose thought long and hard about it afterward. The Doctor was bonded to the TARDIS. And she was bonded with it too, ever since she looked into the heart of the TARDIS. The Doctor was bonded with, and was, the Oncoming Storm – the terror in the ancient legends of the Dalek home world. And Rose was bonded with, and was, the Bad Wolf – the legend scattered across all of Time and Space, and beyond to other universes, to bring her back to the Doctor, and keep the course of Time protected. But the Oncoming Storm and the Bad Wolf were always together. Every planet, in every time, in every universe had a story of them together. The Oncoming Storm, and the Bad Wolf. The Bad Wolf and the Oncoming Storm. Always there. Always together. Except due to the Laws of Time, it could never be. A mortal and a near immortal - that was supposed to be impossible. So Time tore them from one another, because Time wanted recompense. Rose had thought long and hard. She didn't understand everything yet. She wasn't even sure if she understood it at all. But she had an idea. The Doctor was bonded with the TARDIS, and so was she. After that night, she was pretty sure they were bonded to each other. The Doctor hardly ever spoke of his home, of his past, but he did mention that they didn't marry on Gallifrey, they were bonded to another. She wondered if that made her his wife, and he her husband. It would explain why the other always knew when the other was near, and how they could finish each other's sentences, and seemingly read each other's thoughts. Humans might call it their sixth sense and Gallifreyans might call it being bonded, but the Doctor and Rose called it love. When Time tore them apart, the TARDIS ached. Her Time Lord was bleeding, and the human child was gone. She knew they both would die without something to keep them going, so she gave the Doctor other people to care for, and led him in the right direction for things to keep him occupied until he started aching less. But she knew Rose would need more than that. The Doctor had had countless people leave him, and was used to that in some ways. He always expected that Rose would die, and he would outlive her. But nothing like this had ever happened to Rose before. So the TARDIS felt compassion and gave her a gift. In truth it had started after Rose had promised the Doctor forever, and the golden and silver light became one, but it took the soul of the TARDIS to finish it. The TARDIS gave them a gift. She gave them a son.

Sammy was lost. He was wandering in the woods, and he was lost. He had thought that he was going the right direction, but it would appear he was wrong. Because he had been walking since 5:30 in the morning, and his watch now said 9:50, but he still hadn't found who he was looking for. It seemed like that feeling was gone now, and it was getting quieter and quieter. Sammy was beginning to feel very scared. Some of the ferns were as tall as he was, making it hard to see. And the ground was wet with dew, and sometimes there was mud. He had already tripped and fallen four times, and had leaves in his hair. He was not happy.

"Where are you?" he called out, hoping that whoever he was looking for would answer him, but he was only met with his echo. Sammy jumped as a crow overhead cawed menacingly, and spotting a log and a rather large rock, Sammy ran to hide behind it. Sitting down with his back tucked in between the log and the rock, he pulled his knees up to his chest. Right now he could care less if he found that thing he was looking for. Right now all he wanted was his Mummy. Sammy began to cry…

The Doctor was standing outside the TARDIS, debating which way to go. He wanted to find out where the nearest town was, and if he could pick up any spare parts to try and fix the TARDIS. She hadn't spoken to him since their arrival. He sensed that she was too weak from the crash to do so. What the Doctor didn't know was that he was in another universe. He didn't even know he was on Planet Earth. He ran a hand over the smooth painted blue wood of his TARDIS's exterior.

"I'll be back for you," he said to her. There was no reply. So, randomly picking a direction, he set off to find the nearest town or residence.

He was deep in the woods. He had to hike for at least three miles until the foliage began to clear up, and he thought he was coming out of the forest. When he did come out of the forest, he found himself at the edge of a lawn. In front of him was a two-story white house, with teal shutters, and a front porch, with two rockers, and a white, wicker furniture set. There was a blue car in the driveway, and to the side of the house there was a separate garage. The lights were on inside, so he decided that his best bet was to knock on the door and see who lived there. Perhaps they would be able to tell him where he was. Walking up the front steps to the door, he knocked on the doorknocker three times. Then someone opened the door and he started to say,

"Hello, do you think I can use your telephone," but he never did, because the person standing in front of him was the one person he never expected to see again. His brain stopped working, and his hearts stopped beating.

"Rose…"

The Torchwood agents had arrived ten minutes after Rose's call. Rose was busy checking around the yard and down and along the dirt road that led to her house. Her house was set back a long way from the relatively quiet road, and was surrounded by woods, but she had the ability to get the local Tesco's in eight minutes, the Library in twelve, and the nearest Torchwood Headquarters in thirteen. Driving the speed limit. The Torchwood agents got there in ten minutes because they were Torchwood. They got to drive fast. Jake had come as well, glad to abandon his pile of paperwork that the Preachers group had gathered over the past week, and more than willing to help Rose find her son. Rose hadn't phoned her mum or dad yet, because even though she knew they would rush over to help, her mother was terrible in a crisis, and she didn't want to upset them in case they found him very soon. Rose hadn't been so worried since she came to the Parallel Universe. This was the scariest moment of her life. Nothing she had ever seen or encountered before was scarier than the possibility of losing her little boy. When the vans of Torchwood agents arrived, she sent them into the woods, and around the surrounding area. After calling for Sammy once again and trekking down the long driveway, looking for him, she went back inside to grab better shoes and phone her parents. She was just about to pick up the phone when she heard a knock at the door. Praying it was one of the field agents that had found Sammy, she went to open it. But it wasn't one of them. It was impossible. Absolutely impossible. She was hallucinating. How could he be here? He was the same as she remembered. The wild brown hair, the brown pinstripe suit, and the overcoat that Janis Joplin had given him. Then he said her name,

"Rose…" sounding disbelieving and looking astonished. How did he get here?

"D-Doctor?" she said uncertainly, "You- you're real? You're here…"

"I'm here," he said, vehemently, his voice dripping with emotion, and his eyes sparkling. "Not just an image this time."

Rose slowly and cautiously brought her hand up to touch the Doctor's cheek, just as she had on the beach. She was wishing with all that she was that this wasn't another cruel dream. She hesitated for a moment a few inches away from his cheek. His eyes searched hers for a moment, and found fear in her eyes, as well as sorrow.

"It's alright," he whispered softly, "I won't disappear if you won't." He leaned his head ever so gently toward her hand, and Rose's fingers came in contact with solid, smooth, flesh. There was her proof; he was there, as well as the fact that he brought his hand up to cover hers, and quickly – but definitely kissed her palm.

It is impossible to say who moved first. Each other's movement spurred their own. They flung their arms around each other in a desperate hug, Rose saying, "You're here, you're here," over and over again like a mantra, and he saying, "Rose," softly into her shoulder the same way. When they finally pulled back slightly from their hug, Rose said,

"Oh, Doctor, thank goodness you're here, it's"

The Doctor cut her off-

"No, Rose wait," he pressed his forehead to hers and held her face in his hands, "there's something I never finished." He took a deep breath, "Rose Tyler, I love you."

A radiant smile broke out over Rose's face.

"Good. I love you too – so much." She closed the gap between them and they kissed. It was short, but filled with emotion.

"So much," the Doctor echoed in a whisper. Rose grinned again. But then, the grin was wiped off her face, and she looked seriously at him.

"Doctor, we have a huge problem. There's a little boy missing."

The Doctor saw the look on her face and knew she was not joking about the severity of the matter.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"He's three years old, and went missing this morning. I think he's around here in the woods somewhere. He likes to wander off," she gave a dull laugh, "a lot."

The Doctor nodded, confused as to who exactly this little boy was. Rose took his hand tightly, and said,

"Come on, I have to phone Mum and Dad." She led him through to the kitchen. So she didn't live with her mum then. A million questions were going through his mind. Though he was hyper-aware of how right her fingers intertwined with his and her palm against his felt once again. Rose picked up the phone and dialed her parent's phone number.

"Hi, Charley? Is… is Dad there?" there was a short pause. "Hi, Dad?" she said, her voice shaky, "has Torchwood called you yet? Yeah, um. Sammy's missing." The Doctor could faintly hear Pete's voice on the other end of the line, but couldn't make out what he was saying.

"Yeah I put him to bed last night, and I thought that he was in his room this morning, but when I went to check on him, he was gone. Yeah. I checked. Yeah, I called Jake, and he sent over a bunch of the crew. They're in the woods right now. I'm about to go out there and look for him, but I wanted to make sure you knew." Rose paused again as Pete talked. The Doctor looked around. A missing little boy? Who was this boy exactly? More importantly, _whose_ boy was he? The Doctor looked around Rose's house, noting the toy truck in the corner, the small sandals by the door. What was he doing? The little boy… Sammy… there had to be someone else. A boyfriend, or fiancé, who was he kidding, probably a husband. Then again, there was no wedding band on her left hand which he was currently holding. But what if they didn't do wedding band's in this universe? But she had kissed him, and told him that she loved him. Surely she meant it… The Doctor's head was spinning. Rose gripped the Doctor's hand tighter suddenly, and he squeezed comfortingly back. "I know. I know the stakes are Dad. We'll find him," Rose said vehemently, "we'll find him." There was another pause. "Love you too. And Dad? Do me a favor. Don't tell Mum? I don't want her freaking out in case we find him really soon. It will just worry her, and you know as well as I that she's not good in a crisis. If you have to tell her, go ahead, but I'd prefer that she not know right now. Okay. Bye," Rose said, sounding on the verge of breaking into sobs. She turned to the Doctor, and he could see her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. It made the Doctor ache to see it. He wanted to hug her, but wasn't sure if she would want that. He took her other hand.

"Rose," he said softly, "who is he? The little boy. Who is Sammy?"

A tear slid down Rose's cheek. She looked into the Doctor's eyes. It was the first time the Doctor had said Sammy's name.

"Sammy… he's my son."

Sammy sat in the same spot as he had been in for the past ten minutes. Then he heard a voice, calling out his name. It was male, and rough, and very loud. Oh no. There was no way that Sammy was going to let someone find him and take him away, or hurt him. Sammy stayed very still and pressed his back as close as he could to the rock, tucking his knees up close to his chest and putting his head down between his knees. If he was very, very careful, he would stay safe. Sammy's feet were freezing, his legs were hurting, and his eyes stung from tears. He realized that he was extremely hungry, and that the granola bar he had gotten before he left had long been digested. As the voice grew farther away, and he heard the sound of the man going the opposite direction, Sammy breathed a shaky sigh of relief. But he was still miserable. The sky was overcast and dark over head.

"Mummy, please get here soon!" he murmured into his knees as he rested his chin on them. He could care less about who he was looking for now. The feeling he had felt in the morning was gone now. "I just want to go home!" he suddenly yelled. Home was where Mummy was.

"Your son," the Doctor repeated quietly. Rose nodded, avoiding all eye contact. "But, but you said – at the beach, you said you weren't…" the Doctor trailed off. The sentence was too difficult to finish.

"I wasn't. Well, I mean, I didn't know then. Mum did have a baby. His name is Tony. Doctor, I didn't know. If I did I would have told you."

The Doctor only nodded.

"Doctor," Rose said. The Doctor turned away.

"Stop it," he said quietly. "Just stop it!" He was much too calm, and Rose knew it.

"Doctor!" she said, reaching for his arm. He turned around and pulled away.

"I said stop it!" he yelled. "Stop doing that!"

"Doing what?" Rose yelled back.

"Saying 'Doctor'. Like my being here is going to make it all better. Rose, you have a life here now. A son, and a house, and a family."

"Yeah, that's right. And right now, that family is in jeopardy. My _**son**_ is missing. And I want to find him."

"I know. I know, I'm sorry." The Doctor raised his eyes from the floor and looked at Rose. She looked confused, and hurt, and most of all very scared. The Doctor was desperately confused as well, but he realized now was not the time. He pulled Rose to him, resting his cheek on the top of her head.

"I'll help you find him, Rose. We'll find him."

Rose held onto him almost as if for dear life.

"Thank you," she whispered back.

"Let's go," the Doctor replied. Without hesitation Rose reached for his hand as they headed for the door.

They entered the woods, heading where they saw some shoe prints from the early morning mud. Entering the ferns, it got difficult to track any footsteps. It was more likely that instead of stepping on the ferns and skunk cabbage, he waded through, being only three years old and hardly big enough to step on them very much. Rose called out for him, yelling his name,

"Sammy! Sammy! Where are you? Sammy!" They walked deeper into the woods, marking their path as they went. The Doctor stopped and cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled out,

"SAMMY! CALL OUT IF YOU CAN HEAR US! WE'RE LOOKING FOR YOU! YOUR MUMMY'S HERE! SAMMY!"

The thought briefly crossed Rose's mind about how wonderful it was to hear the Doctor calling Sammy, but how terrible it was at the same time. The Doctor turned to look at her.

"No reply, Rose. I can't figure out where he's gone none of the ferns are broken, and I can't make out any tracks."

Rose nodded, her eyes panicked, but determined. Her heart was pounding rapidly – each second they waited could bring Sammy one step closer to danger, or even dea- no. Don't even think that. There was a river running through the middle of the woods. Maybe they should head for there.

"We should head that way," she said, pointing, "That's where the river is, maybe he would have headed that direction."

"Ok," the Doctor said, and they continued to search.

After another half hour of calling, Rose's voice was hoarse, but she yelled out once again,

"Sammy! SAMMY!" This time, the Doctor held up his finger,

"Wait, I think I hear something."

Rose was silent, straining her ears to hear.

"This way," the Doctor said, and began to run through the ferns. She followed after him, and called Sammy's name once again. She saw a large rock up ahead. And out from the side of the rock appeared a small little blonde head, and a little boy who yelled,

"MUMMY!" and they ran to each other. Rose dropped to her knees on the ground and held Sammy to her.

"Oh, Sammy you're alright. You're alright." She said this with her eyes closed, reassuring herself that he was ok. Sammy was half between crying and burying his face in Rose's shoulder, and talking non-stop.

"Mummy I was so scared! I didn't think that you would come, that you would find me. I was lost. I didn't mean to be. It just happened. But you came Mummy. You found me."

"Yes darling, it's alright. We found you, you're safe now."

The Doctor stood to the side, watching, transfixed. It was Rose with a child. Rose with her son. And it was beautiful. It took his breath away. The child had blonde tousled hair, and was wearing small red Converse trainers. It looked so natural. For Rose to be with him, and for him to be with her. It was everything the Doctor wanted. That's why it hurt him so much. He turned away. The child wasn't his. Sammy wasn't his. This wasn't his. Once again, it was someone he cared about, getting something he wanted, and he just had to watch. The Universe was so unfair.

Sammy pulled his head away from Rose's shoulder as Rose asked him,

"Sammy, why did you run away this morning? Why did you leave without asking me? That was very wrong."

"I woke up early Mummy, and I felt something. It wasn't quiet anymore. Something came here, and I went to go find it, find them, but then I couldn't. Does that mean I failed, Mummy?"

"No, no Sammy. You didn't fail. It's ok. Is it quiet now?"

"Yeah. Nobody's there."

This had caught the Doctor's attention. What was he talking about? The Doctor glanced at the sky.

"We should be getting back, Rose. It's going to rain soon. And you've got to call Jake and tell him to call off the search."

"Yeah. Ok. We'll go on home Sammy, yeah?"

"Ok. But Mummy? Home is where you are."

Rose smiled softly at her little boy and stroked his hair. Then she kissed his cheek.

"I love you," she said. Sammy said,

"I love you too," and laid his head down on Rose's shoulder. They began to walk back, as quickly as they could, to avoid the rain. They walked silently until halfway through the walk back, when Sammy sat up and looked at the Doctor curiously.

"Mummy? Who's that?" he asked.

"That's the Doctor," Rose replied.

"The Doctor?" he repeated, "You mean the real one?"

"Yes. He's real."

"Blimey," Sammy said, and was quiet again. They reached the house just as the first heavy raindrops began to fall. They made a dash for the door, and managed to get inside just as the heavens broke open and rain poured down in sheets. Rose set Sammy down on the floor, and the Doctor made sure the door was securely locked.

"Are you hungry?" Rose asked. Sammy nodded fervently, and chucked off his shoes.

"Ok, I'll make you something. Then you're getting a bath. Those shoes could probably stand to go through the wash as well."

The Doctor sat down on a chair across the round table from Sammy, who watched him silently, but with big eyes and avid interest. It made the Doctor slightly uncomfortable, so he looked at the salt and pepper shakers on the table instead. Throughout the meal Sammy watched the Doctor, and Rose set about making tea, but halfway through, Sammy started rubbing his eyes and yawning.

"I'm tired Mummy, can I skip the bath and go to bed?"

"No," Rose said firmly, "you are taking a bath. You are filthy. It's a good thing I washed your hands before you started eating that toast, or else you wouldn't be able to tell the dirt from the crumbs."

The Doctor smirked slightly. Something in Rose reminded him of Jackie's parenting techniques.

"Fine," Sammy said, but with more than a hint of dissatisfaction. After his meal, Rose set a cup of tea in front of the Doctor, and placed a hand on his shoulder, saying,

"I just have to give him a bath and put him to bed. It won't take but a mo'. 'S that alright?"

"Yeah," the Doctor said lightly, and grabbed the mug, taking a hot sip and breathing in the steam as Rose left the room with Sammy. Rose could tell that something was wrong, and after Sammy was put to bed, they were going to have a long talk.

The Doctor stood up from the table and shrugging off his overcoat, strolled around the kitchen, looking at everything, taking in every detail. The counters were a smooth blue and white checkered vinyl, and the floor was light colored hardwood pine. The cabinets were painted white, with silver handles, and there was a stainless steel double sink. The wall behind the counters and underneath the cabinets was painted in a long thick green stripe, with two blue stripes along the outside of it. Gold accents were in the paint, and made it shine when the light hit it some. On the windowsill above the sink, the Doctor noticed there was a row of pictures. He went to take a closer look. One was of Rose holding Sammy and both of them grinning madly at the camera at what looked like in the yard at Jackie and Pete's house. Another was of Sammy after his first haircut. The Doctor swallowed hard. It was obvious that Sammy's hair had grown out longer now, but after that haircut his hairstyle was exactly the same as his. One of the pictures was of Jackie, and Pete, and Rose at a formal party, Jackie holding a newborn baby, (who he assumed to be Tony), and Rose looking very pregnant. Something was stinging at the Doctor's eyes, but he resolved not to let it get the best of him. And then another picture… was of himself. It was one night after Rose and he had visited the 2012 London Olympics. He was grinning goofily, and holding out one of those cakes with the edible ball bearings on them. He was so happy then. They both were. So much had changed. The last picture was of the two of them, when Rose had forced the Doctor to dress in 'normal' clothes – a black shirt with the top two buttons undone, jeans, and a brown belt. And he actually had about two days worth of stubble on his face. She had said it looked good, and fit the casual look. She had gone a bit different from her own style that day, just to show him she could, and dressed in pretty tan jeans, ballet flats, and a tan jacket over a blue blouse with a scarf around her neck. They were standing on some random London bridge, him with his arms around her from behind, and her grinning and leaning back into him as the wind blew their hair. And, despite the forced change in clothing, he had to admit, he was smiling too. He had been very happy that day. It was a special day, that one.

The Doctor wandered into their formal living room, which was connected to the dining room. The Doctor didn't quite understand why they needed so much space, and a dining table that had the capacity to hold 12 people, but he didn't question it. It looked lovely. Very Rose, and, admittedly, also was probably quite a decent price, but without being stuffy and so formal that you were disgusted by the person's need to show off their wealth. Rose was never like that, the Doctor mused, as he sat down on her sofa. The large rug was green, and the couch was a burgundy print. Several comfy chairs sat around the room, along with some end tables and coffee tables, but the Doctor grinned as he saw Sammy's toys all lined up in the corner. It made the room seem alive. Above the mantle on the fireplace, there were more pictures, but larger ones, portraits of Rose, and Sammy, and Jackie and Pete, and probably Tony too. Tony was the spitting image of Pete. He looked like Jackie, and Rose too, but definitely looked a lot like the little kid version of Pete.

The Doctor spotted a blue and white checkered photo album, marked, "Sammy's baby pictures". He picked it up. The first few pictures were of Rose at the hospital, trying to smile, but probably in labor pains. There was a few more of her in her hospital room, and showing the little cradle where Sammy would be placed once he was born. There were none of the actual labor, but just after he was born, there were many of Sammy, and Rose, and the two of them together. Something in the Doctor constricted. He wanted to have been there. Sure, the boy wasn't his, but he _**should**_ have been there for Rose, to hold her hand, and help her in the days after Sammy's birth, when she was just discovering how to be a mother. It must have been so difficult to alone like that. The Doctor noted that there were not pictures of a boyfriend or husband, or even another friend from work, except for a lot of pictures of Mickey. He commended Mickey, and admired him, for being there for Rose as he knew that Mickey was, when he couldn't be – but he felt a deep resentment and hate growing in him for the man who was the father. The man who was obviously not there.

The Doctor heard Rose's approach before he saw her. She came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders in a hug, pressing her cheek to his neck. She gave him a peck on the cheek lightly, before the Doctor said,

"Wait, Rose. Stop," and pulled away. He stood up and turned around, to face a confused and hurt looking Rose. She walked around to the front side of the sofa and sat down.

"Ok. What's wrong with you? You can't hide it forever," Rose said. The Doctor looked pained for a moment, before turning away and leaning against the fireplace mantel. He sighed uncomfortably and turned back around again.

"You've got a son," he said seriously.

"Yeah, I think I noticed," Rose said with a grin.

"Yeah," was all that the Doctor said back.

"Is there a problem with that, or something?" Rose asked, feeling slightly defensive.

"No!" the Doctor replied, a little too quickly, then, "Well I mean," another sigh, "not exactly." He sat down on the couch next to Rose. "Rose you've got a house. A proper house with doors and windows and carpets."

"Rugs," Rose corrected. "I've only got rugs. No real carpets."

"Alright then, rugs. And… have you got a mortgage?" he asked suddenly.

"No, I began saving to buy a house after Dad was able to get me a Torchwood flat that wasn't very expensive. They chipped in when it came time to move here, but I had saved up a lot from the Torchwood income, and I didn't want to go into debt. So, no mortgage," she answered.

"Oh," the Doctor said.

"You want to go then," said Rose very quietly after a moment, sounding like she was on the edge, and one tiny push she would tumble off and break. She had lost too much being separated from him. But she wouldn't stop him if he wanted to leave.

"That's the thing, Rose, I don't. I want to stay so very badly, or at least I want to be with you, but all this," he gestured around the house, "the house, the doors, the rugs, you, Sammy – it isn't mine." He bowed his head and looked at his hands. He spoke softly, "And I want it to be. I want it too much. I'm not supposed to want it, but I do. And that could be a very big problem."

"Doctor," Rose said, reaching for his hand gently, "what makes you think that you can't have this? I already gave that all to you a long time ago, when I promised you something. I promised you forever. Do you remember?"

He nodded brokenly and stood up again, running his hands through his hair.

"So… Sammy's father – he's… he's not here is he? Did he leave – or, is he dead or… do you not do wedding bands in this universe?"

"What?" Rose said, feeling confused, "What are you talking about?"

"Rose, you could be married and I don't even know! If Sammy's father is coming back, then I can't be here to stop him. He has first precedence over me."

Rose stood up and walked over to the Doctor, and gently placed both of her hands on the sides of his head, pulling his forehead down to rest against hers.

"Doctor, I promised you forever. I'm a woman of my word. Even if I had a chance with another man in this universe, I wouldn't look twice, because you held both of my hearts in the other universe. I can't give away what belongs to you."

"What do you mean, hearts?" he asked.

"Feel," Rose said, grabbing his hand and placing his fingers on her neck to feel her pulse.

"You've – you've got a double heartbeat? Two hearts? Like me? How did that happen?" he asked her.

"I was going to ask you, but it would appear you don't know. It happened when I was pregnant with Sammy. Doctor, the pregnancy was 13 months long. The same number of regenerations a Time Lord has. And I developed a second heart, and a respiratory bypass system. I don't catch colds anymore. Doctor, the entire pregnancy, I wasn't thinking about another man. I wasn't thinking about a normal life. I was thinking about my baby's father. I was thinking about you."

The Doctor had stayed stock still, but now he drew a sharp intake of breath.

"You mean… I'm…" he couldn't finish his sentence; he was choking up, and holding back tears, "Am I Sammy's father? Do we have a son?" he managed to get out before hugging Rose to him and letting some of his long overdue tears fall.

"Yeah," Rose said, stroking his hair as he buried his face in her shoulder. "Shh, don't cry. It's alright. We're parents, that's a good thing!"

"I know," he chuckled a little, "but it's everything I wanted, everything I pined after while you were gone, while I had the other half of my soul ripped away. And now, it's like we're mended. Patched up, back together again."

"Mutt 'n' Jeff," Rose said, laughing softly. The Doctor grinned.

"Shiver 'n' Shake."

"The Stuff of Legends!" Rose finished, and he kissed her.

Five-and-a-half hours later, after the rain had stopped, but the sun had set, Sammy crept out of his room, hugging Clarence the stuffed moose to him tightly, and wondering where his Mummy and the Doctor were. It seemed like from the day he was born, he had heard stories of the Doctor. He had always begged for Mummy to tell him a story of the Doctor, and the young blond girl from London who went on adventures with him.

He heard voices coming from the living room, so he headed for there. As he walked in quietly, he could see the Doctor sitting on the sofa, and his Mummy sitting next to him. The Doctor's arm was around his Mummy's waist, and she was resting her head on his chest. Their free hands were clasped in each others, and the Doctor was in the process of telling Rose something that made her laugh. Sammy walked quietly closer to the couch. Then his mother and the Doctor stopped talking and turned to look at him. He looked at both of the curiously for a moment before saying,

"Hi," and hugging Clarence.

"Hello, Sammy," said the Doctor with a smile. Sammy paused, and furrowed his eyebrows, looking like he was trying to work out a serious problem.

"Mummy? Why is it not quiet anymore?"

Rose reached for Sammy as he held out his arms to be held, and put him on her lap, half resting in between her and the Doctor.

"You remember last week don't you, when I told you about the walls?"

"Yeah," Sammy said, petting Clarence.

"Tell me what you hear, inside your head," Rose said, as the Doctor watched.

"Well, there's no longer that space… I hear… you. And…" he paused, thinking. "Someone's there, in the space where… where Daddy is supposed to be. And they're… soothing."

The Doctor grinned, and Sammy turned to him.

"It's you isn't it," Sammy said, "you're in that space. Were you the one I woke up and was looking for?"

"Yeah, I believe I was, Sammy."

Sammy looked at the Doctor, almost like he was inspecting him, but more with a childlike curiosity that he tended to have toward everything. Truth be told, it reminded Rose of the Doctor a lot.

"He's the real one, Mummy?" Sammy said, turning his head to look at Rose. "He's the real Doctor, not just _**a**_ Doctor, or someone who goes by that name? You're sure he's the real one?"

Rose grinned and stroked Sammy's hair.

"Positive, Sammy. I'm absolutely sure about it. That is, _**the**_ Doctor."

"Mummy told me about you," Sammy said to him.

"Oh? What did your Mummy tell you about me?"

"She said that you were – that you were good. That you were kind. And she told me you could be very angry, but only if someone was trying to hurt a good person. And she said that there were aliens you had to stop, but you always made it out alive. They never got you. And… and she said that the young blond girl got separated from you, and that she was very sad. And that the young blond girl cried for days and days after she lost her grip on the lever, because she missed you."

The Doctor raised his eyes to meet Rose's for a moment, seeing only truth there, as Sammy continued,

"But she said… that your ship, that she gave the young blond girl a gift, to keep her from feeling so sad and lonely, but Mummy never said what the gift was. She said that the young blond girl stopped telling stories of Time and Space, because she was too busy taking care of her gift, because it was very special to her, but she never forgot. That's what Mummy said anyway," Sammy finished.

"Your Mummy was right, then, Sammy. And I'll tell you a secret," the Doctor said, while leaning forward conspiratorially toward Sammy, and simultaneously tucking a loose strand of hair behind Rose's ear, and stroking her cheek. "Your Mummy –" the Doctor said, as Sammy nodded eagerly, "is the young blond girl."

"What?" Sammy said, "honestly?"

"Yep!" the Doctor replied cheerfully with a huge grin at Sammy.

"Blimey!" Sammy said, dwelling on this piece of information.

"Sammy, can you guess who the Doctor is?" Rose said, rubbing her son's arm.

"What do you mean?" Sammy asked, furrowing his eyebrows again.

"Remember when I told you about the walls, and how your Daddy and I were separated? And remember how the young blond girl cried for days and days after she was separated from the Doctor? But then, the TARDIS gave her a gift. If I'm the young blond girl, and I was separated from the Doctor, and I cried for days and days, but the TARDIS gave me a gift, can you guess what that gift was?"

Sammy shook his head.

"It was you. You're my gift. _**Our**_ gift. Look at the Doctor. He has something to tell you."

"Would you like to sit on my lap, Sammy?" the Doctor asked, and Sammy nodded, and climbed over to sit cradled in his lap. The Doctor held him securely with one arm around his back, and the other around his waist, so Sammy was looking up at him as he spoke. "You're Mummy traveled with me for a long time, after the store where she worked got blown up… by me. When she first came, I'm afraid I could have been a lot nicer. But I was very sad, I had just lost my home and my family and everyone I knew in a very big war. But your Mummy, she was able to fix me, and make me better. And I changed a lot. Everything that Mummy did - that made me love her. We became best friends, and then I decided that she had done so much for me, that I loved her as more than a friend, and she had loved me all along, and so, you could say, we got married. But just when we were finally happy, some very bad enemies came, and we got separated on opposite sides of the walls between the universes. That means, that I'm your Daddy. Do you see now?"

"You're my Daddy?" Sammy said hopefully, and wriggled out of the Doctor's grasp to stand up on his knees. Sammy pushed his tiny fists into the Doctor's hair and grasped it, trying to keep his balance as he looked directly into the Doctor's eyes. He pressed his forehead to the Doctor's and said,

"Mummy said you would come. I knew you would, and I told her, that if you loved us you would come. You love us Daddy?"

"So much, Sammy. I love you with all my hearts, and all I have, and all of the universes in between." The Doctor wrapped his arms tightly around his little son in a hug, and Sammy's arms encircled his neck. Sammy kissed his cheek and said,

"I love you Daddy," then after a short pause, "is it true that you saw real dinosaurs?"

The Doctor and Rose laughed, and proceeded to tell their spellbound son of their adventures, and promised that there would be many to come.

The morning after, Rose, Sammy, and the Doctor all lay among the fluffy bedcovers of Rose's large bed in Rose's bedroom. Unlike her room back in her flat at Jackie's when she was 19, or her room on the TARDIS, this bedroom was not an overload of pink, but rather a mix of cool blues and whites, with the bedspread covered in green embroidery. Rose lay on her side on one side of the bed, and the Doctor lay on his side facing her on the other. Sammy was asleep close to Rose's side, but with his face resting against the Doctor's chest, the Doctor's arm about both of them. Rose and the Doctor were watching their son sleep while gently stroking his hair, and whispering softly, as all parents are apt to do sometimes.

"So," Rose said, "where is the TARDIS exactly? Someplace in the middle of the woods?"

"No I got up in the middle of the night and trekked back to her. She went dark, like the first time we crashed here, but she spoke to me. About a week of recovery, and she should be fine, ready to get back out there in space again. I parked her in the front garden."

"What about our friends, in the original universe? And what about Mum and Dad and Mickey and Tony here?"

"That shouldn't be a problem," the Doctor said, with a wolfish grin, "_**I**_ cracked the code that makes traveling between the universes possible, Miss Rose Tyler."

"That's Mrs. Doctor, rather, isn't it."

The Doctor laughed softly.

"Yeah, I guess it is," he said, leaning over and kissing her softly. Then he pulled away, and lightly kissed Sammy's cheek. Sammy shifted closer to the Doctor in his sleep and the Doctor grinned.

"You think you're so impressive," Rose said, reaching for his hand.

"I _**am**_ so impressive," the Doctor replied in a perfect northern accent.

"Whoa, that was just creepy, why didn't you tell me you could do that back when you first regenerated?"

"I don't know," the Doctor replied, "maybe it's cause you missed the old me so much, and I knew it would hurt you too much if I did it in front of you. It was a lot to take in, for a human who has never seen regeneration before."

"You knew all that? Before we bonded?"

"I could tell. It wasn't until our adventure with Queen Victoria that I think you really started liking this me, although we did have that time over Christmas Holiday to get to know one another again."

"Yeah," said Rose, remembering that time long ago now.

"You know, I can get Dad to fix you up with some papers, something that says we're officially married."

"Rose, what happened that day, after 'forever'. I've been bonded before, on Gallifrey. I'm familiar with the entire process, and all that is entailed. The bondings were more like formal partnerships for us, as opposed to relationships built and based on love. That was one of the things I resented about them, they valued tradition and ceremony over feeling and happiness. I was always a rebel. I wanted to feel when they wanted to be all stuffy and stoic. I wanted to run when they wanted to stay and stand their ground. Anyway, what I'm saying is, what happened then – was and is much more powerful than any Gallifreyan bonding ever was, or any Earth marriage could be. It goes much, much deeper than that."

"Something special," Rose said.

"Yeah," the Doctor said, "that something special gave us this angel sleeping in our arms," the Doctor said, affectionately nuzzling Sammy's hair with his nose. Rose watched as the Doctor expressed affection, something she had never really seen him do, even with her.

"A gift from the TARDIS?" Rose said.

"Maybe," the Doctor replied, "Or maybe, even a gift from Time Herself."

"So in a while then, we'll be off again, to explore Time and Space, plus one extra passenger?"

"If you want," the Doctor said.

"I want to. If we can safely travel between universes now, then it will give me a way to still have a connection with my family on this Earth, and our friends on the other. What do you say, Doctor? Fancy another trip with your best mate Rose?"

The breeze blew the white curtains that covered the windows gently, and the morning light streamed in to the room. The sound of birdsong filled the air outside, and the Doctor squeezed Rose's hand softly as their son began to wake. He looked into Rose's eyes, then down at Sammy, smiling.

"Yeah, I think I do. The three of us. Together."

And so they did.


End file.
